Friday, April 11, 2008

The work week is finally done and the weekend has fallen upon us.Do you have any plans for the next few days?If not, then please check out the following items:

Havana Film Festival NY

The ninth edition of the Havana Film Festival New York starts tonight with the U.S. premiere of “La Noche de los Inocentes”.Yet if you can’t plunk down $100 for the tonight’s opening then check out the schedule where over 40 films from the Americas will be playing for a small price or even for free. (The Havana Film Festival NY lasts until April 18).

“Torrijos: The Man and the Myth”

A photographic exhibition at the Americas Society comes to a close on Saturday.“Torrijos: The Man and the Myth” looks at snapshots of ex-Panamanian leader Omar Torrijos by Mexican photographer Graciela Iturbide.(FYI- The event is free).

“Hope: Living and Loving with HIV in Jamaica”

For Sunday, why not check out “Hope: Living and Loving with HIV in Jamaica”.It’s a multimedia project created by the Pulitzer Center that highlights the impact of HIV in Jamaica.The interactive website contains essays, poems, music, and is done in conjunction with the Center’s “Global Gateway” initiative.

“There is no evidence” that the Venezuelan government sponsors Colombia’s FARC guerillas, according to the head of the Organization of American States (OAS).Jose Miguel Insulza (image) appeared before a House of Representatives meeting yesterday to discuss the recent diplomatic crisis between several South American countries.

Insulza’s remarks came during a “heated exchange” with Rep. Connie Mack; Mack has proposed to include Venezuela on a State Department list of countries that support terrorism. Other lawmakers were also very critical of Insulza and the OAS:

Indiana Representative Dan Burton questioned Ecuador's efforts at preventing Colombian rebels from entering its territory, but Insulza came to Quito's defense: "It's not so simple as saying, 'go get rid of them'"…

Insulza also defended the OAS from lawmakers' criticism it was ineffectual in the crisis.

"The OAS is no more than what its member countries want it to be," he said, paraphrasing the first OAS secretary general, Alberto Lleras Camargo.

Last month, the OAS passed a resolution rejecting Colombia’s incursion into Ecuador yet also called for member states to combat threats from “irregular groups.”

The U.S. Interests Section in Havana has begun expediting visas to allow Cubans to travel to the U.S.According to BBC News, the application process via the new Cuban Family Reunification Program would shorten the wait for visas to months rather than the usual three to seven years.

In the meantime, illegal immigration from Cuba has spiked including more migrants trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border.Both the Cuba and U.S. governments have blamed each other for the increase:

Cuba has long accused Washington of encouraging Cubans to risk their lives at sea by offering the prize of almost automatic residency to those who make it ashore.

U.S. officials say Cuba's lack of political freedom and economic stagnation drives its people to leave.

On April 7, two radio reporters from a community radio were ambushed in Putla de Guerrero, Oaxaca, and shot to death. Teresa Bautista Flores, 24, and Felicitas Martínez, 20, two women journalists working for La Voz que Rompe el Silencio (The Voice that Breaks the Silence), were murdered allegedly by paramilitary forces. Three other people were wounded in the shooting: Jaciel Vázquez, aged 3, and his parents.In an interview with Radio Bemba in Sonora, Mexico, Jorge Albino, coordinator of La Voz que Rompe el Silencio said that the radio station had been receiving death threats since its inception. The station was inagurated on January 20 to serve the Trique indigenous community in San Juan Copala, a year after the locality was granted administrative autonomy.

The women of Oaxaca have been at the forefront of activism in the Mexican region, making them more targeted than they already are.

Democratic rivals Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama have spent more than $4 million targeting Spanish-speaking primary voters and likely will blanket swing states such as Ohio, New Mexico and Pennsylvania for November’s general election, according to the Hispanic Voter Project at Johns Hopkins University. Republican Sen. John McCain, meanwhile, isn’t conceding the airwaves on the way to his party’s nomination and aired a Spanish-language ad last week in New Mexico aimed at the general election

Of course the money spent says nothing about the quality of the ads but it's better than nothing, right?

Opposition has mounted in Honduras against a no-drive law which went into effect on Monday.The regulation- which is similar to one used in Bogota, Colombia- barred private car usage for one day each week.The move has led to protests around the country and the mayor of the Tegucigalpa even offered free legal services to pay for pico y placa fines.

The Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA, in Spanish) opened its first bank yesterday in Cuba.The ALBA trade alliance- consisting of Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Bolivia- will start with nearly $1 billion in assets and can fund development projects throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.

(Vice-minister for Financing and Development Gustavo Hernandez) denied the project would compete with the Bank of the South, an initiative of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez designed to be an alternative to multilateral institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, which according to Caracas are overly influenced by Washington.

"We want to work internationally in a financial framework that allows us to build a type of cooperation and innovation based on other criteria," he said.

Aside from the ALBA, Venezuela and Bolivia are part of the Bank of the South along with Brazil, Uruguay, and Paraguay.

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

For the second straight day riots have hit the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince as protestors are angry over skyrocketing food prices. “I'm giving you orders to stop,” said President Rene Preval though violence continues to escalate around the highly impoverished nation.

The following is a Reuters video on the disturbances in Haiti.The video also notes of other protests regarding soaring food prices in countries like El Salvador.

The Venezuelan government announced today that it will nationalize the country’s largest steel maker: Ternium Sidor.Shares for the Argentine-controlled firm fell in trading this afternoon, though Venezuela’s Vice President tried to assure that the move was fair and necessary:

Vice President Ramon Carrizalez said the nationalization is meant to protect workers' rights.

"We made a great effort to search for solutions," Carrizalez told reporters. "There was no will on the company's part to settle the conflict."

He said one option would be for the government to assume an ownership share of about 60 percent, with the company's owners keeping 20 percent.

The Ternium Sidor deal comes days after the Chavez administration said that they would nationalize the country’s cement industry; a move which did not sit well with officials at Mexican firm Cemex.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) upheld a complaint brought up by Ecuador regarding banana tariffs by the European Union (EU).The WTO panel concluded that taxes on Latin American banana imports were excessive and discriminatory against countries like Mexico, Guatemala, and Panama.

The WTO’s decision is not only a setback for the EU but also to ACP (Africa-Caribbean-Pacific) countries that benefit most from the EU banana tariff system.As one member of the Caribbean Banana Exporters' Association told the Jamaica Gleanerin February:

"We don't want the tariffs changed in 2008 at all and then going forward we are saying we need a period of 10 years where whatever is the final tariff you want to get to, it takes 10 years to get there," [Dr. Marshall Hall] said.

While banana exports from Latin America to the E.U. were charged at $225/ton, exports from ACP countries have been mostly duty free.

Securing the nation’s borders is so important, Congress says, that Michael Chertoff, the homeland security secretary, must have the power to ignore any laws that stand in the way of building a border fence. Any laws at all.Last week, Mr. Chertoff issued waivers suspending more than 30 laws he said could interfere with “the expeditious construction of barriers” in Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas. The list included laws protecting the environment, endangered species, migratory birds, the bald eagle, antiquities, farms, deserts, forests, Native American graves and religious freedom.The secretary of homeland security was granted the power in 2005 to void any federal law that might interfere with fence building on the border. For good measure, Congress forbade the courts to second-guess the secretary’s determinations. So long as Mr. Chertoff is willing to say it is necessary to void a given law, his word is final.

But on Monday, the culture gap between Clinton and Puerto Ricans, who were granted U.S. citizenship in 1917, sometimes seemed insurmountable. When Clinton walked into the rally in Barceloneta, he sat on a stage and listened as four local politicians introduced him in Spanish. One introducer, among 18 local politicians at the event, turned away from the microphone and looked back at Clinton, eager to interpret for him.

Clinton flashed a thumbs-up and smiled wanly, but he looked distracted during the Spanish speeches. Then he walked to the microphone, shielding his eyes against the 90-degree sun. He rattled off a thank-you list of Spanish names and mispronounced two of them.

As about 1,000 people crowded under white awnings to escape the heat, Clinton proceeded to give a jargon-heavy speech in English about health care and energy efficiency. Nobody interpreted, and only a handful of audience members seemed to understand him. The crowd -- raucous and dancing a few minutes earlier -- remained mostly silent during the 10-minute speech. Some people left. Others chatted on their cellphones.

"What is he saying? Do we clap now?" asked Jerry Nieves Rosario, a college student who speaks only Spanish. "If I had known about this, maybe I would have stayed home."

I should note that the granting of U.S. citizenship in 1917 wasn't something that was asked for by the people of Puerto Rico and that Puerto Ricans cannot vote in the November general elections.Source : Washington Post

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Last week, Costa Rica’s government banned TV ads from fast food chain Burger King depicting mothers hiring a hitman to kill “the king”.The commercials “trivialized violence” according to one government official, while one group complained that the ads were offensive to women.

A poll by Reforma newspaper showed that Mexicans are evenly divided between supporting the presidential campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.The survey found that the country’s public preferred the two Democratic candidates by 31% each while GOP frontrunner John McCain only got 7%.Also, the poll noticed a geographic gap in support with Obama taking the middle and the poorer south while the northern border states tended to back Clinton.

It’s hard to say what accounts for the shift. Certainly the flak over Obama’s pastor, Jeremiah Wright, didn’t get as much play down here, and repeated calls by Democratic big-wigs for Clinton to get out of the race may have changed some minds. And there is no doubt that Obama’s name recognition in Mexico grows by the day.

The head of the Argentine Olympic Committee (AOC) expressed worry of what could happen if the Olympic torch relay reaches Buenos Aires on Friday. With protests disrupting the relay in Paris and London, AOC president Julio Casanello is on pins and needles in anticipation of what could occur:

“It is undoubtedly a complicated situation. It’s unique when there ideological ingredients mixed in,” he said from Beijing…

“In Argentina there’s a total freedom of expression, but my doubt is how much things can get confused…I don’t know how far (different protest groups) will come together or not.” – [ed. personal translation]

Mind you, Casanello’s concerns may be moot when all is said and done.Though International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge has denied it, reports have circulated that the torch relay could be cancelled.

Image- CTV.ca (“Security men tackle a protester, left, as Stephane Diagana, right, president of France's national athletics league, carries the Olympic torch at the beginning of its relay from the first floor of the Eiffel tower in Paris, Monday, April 7, 2008. (AP / Christophe Ena)”)

Luis Alberto Moreno, president of the Inter-American Development Bank, writes in the Latin Business Chronicle article about Latin American and climate change.

"As we look to new sources of energy, it is imperative to prioritize the support of biofuels that present optimal energy balances and contribute to the mitigation of climate change, that do not conflict with food security, and that avoid negative impacts to land use, biodiversity and water resources."

An article in the Latin Business Chronicle suggests that the United States should open "branch campuses" in Latin America.

Latin America's economy has improved in the last couple of years, with decreased poverty and inflation, but higher education still is a topic that has not caught up with the rest of the world.

None of Latin America's universities are rated in the top 100.

Branch campuses from American universities could jump start a solution, writes Jaime Daremblum, director of the Center for Latin American Studies at the Hudson Institute and former Costa Rican ambassador.

Monday, April 7, 2008

Earlier today we mentioned the sad news of the recent death of Gerardo “Toto” Rotblat, the percussionist for Los Fabulosos Cadillacs.In reading about his passing away, I wondered what happened to the other members of the legendary Argentine rock group.

It turns out that the group’s founder- Flavio Oscar Cianciarulo (aka Señor Flavio)- released his seventh solo album last month.Entitled Supersaund 2012, Billboard.comcalled the album a “well-crafted” effort which sounds like a “throwback to the ska/rock that the group merged so beautifully with Latin sounds in its day.”

Below is a music video from one of the songs from Supersaund 2012 called "El Apagón":

Vodka firm Absolut backtracked from a print ad based on Mexico's previous sovereignty over areas of California and Texas. “In no way was it meant to offend or disparage, nor does it advocate an altering of borders” according to part of a statement from the Swedish-based company.

The ads- which ran and Mexico and were pulled this week- tapped the nerve of a few people in the blogosphere who viewed them as offense and/or anti-American.Others have called for a boycott against Absolut.

"I think the Absolut ad campaign is terrific. For Mexican eyes only, that is," said Manny Gonzalez, vice president and managing director of Hill Holliday Hispanic/abece, a Miami-based ad agency specializing in the Latino market."This advertising basically taps into a very painful episode of Mexico's history, so the cultural code for understanding that [for Mexicans] is 'We were robbed,' " said Eduardo Caccia, vice president of Mindcode, a Mexico City advertising consultancy. "For the U.S. it's different. The understanding for that episode is 'We bought some land. We made a deal.' The same event, but with different meanings."

Maryland authorities identified the remains of a Salvadoran immigrant whose husband killed himself and their four children one year ago.DNA tests confirmed that the bones found near a highway in late February were those of 25-year-old Deysi M. Benitez.

A police spokesman said that “all indications are that this was domestic homicide.”According to a 2007 article, spousal abuse may have been involved in this unfortunate ordeal:

In a telephone interview with The Associated Press...Angela Benitez...said her sister and Pedro Rodriguez, 28, were having problems in their marriage and that he beat her at least once, last December.

"I didn't see it, but she called me and told me that he had left her face a complete mess, that it was a miracle he didn't kill her," Angela Benitez said. Deysi asked for a separation "but he told her he wouldn't allow it."

The last time Angela spoke with Deysi, however, she "was talking very calmly."

U.S. President George W. Bush and the Democrat-controlled congress will head for a showdown over a free trade pact with Colombia. Despite not having the full support of Democratic leaders, President Bush sent the agreement to the legislature earlier today.

Critics have argued the measure does not do enough to protect workers in Colombia and would threaten U.S. jobs at a time of economic uncertainty.

Both Democratic presidential candidates, Sens. Barack Obama of Illinois and Hillary Clinton of New York, have already pledged to re-negotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement between the United States, Canada and Mexico and have expressed their opposition to extending trade accords to Colombia. Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, supports the Colombian pact.

In the meantime, controversy has developed over Mark Penn’s previous work for public relations firm Burson-Marsteller.His lobbying work and relations with pro-free trade Colombian diplomats has led to him quitting from working for Hillary Clinton's campaign.

Image- MarketplaceSources- Bloomberg, TIME, New York Times, miamiherald.com, Associated Press, The Latin Americanist

Chile's constitutional court barred a government program which distributed the “morning-after” pill free to women and girls as young as 14.The tribunal voted 5-4 against the program after a group of opposition legislators compared giving away the pill to abortion, a procedure which is illegal in Chile.

The government of President Michelle Bachelet created the plan last year by arguing that poor women deserved access to contraceptives normally available to the wealthy.According to a Bachelet administration spokesman after the verdict:

"This means going back to square one, this means only women with money will be able to buy the pill, and that bothers the government and the immense majority of the country," government spokesman Francisco Vidal told reporters.

Coincidentally, Bachelet emphasized the “machismo and sexism” facing women during this interview over the weekend.